ABSTRACT
Planning is a purposeful and conscious act of anticipation through which we attempt to envisage the future. Through planning we seek to attain future states seen as desirable and to avoid those that we see as undesirable. Planning may also be used to keep things as they are. It is through planning our activities that we try to reduce our reliance on chance and accidents in attaining our goals. In this way, we plan in order to bring more certainty and predictability to our future activities and, in addition, to make them more certain and predictable to those who work with us. It is through planning, too, that we are able to state goals and targets and be in a position to monitor progress in achieving those goals.
